Fine dining in Bakersfield. Exactly as oxymoronic as it sounds.
The first thing to know about dining out in Bakersfield is that your grandparents would love it here. The dinner hour is between 5 and 6. Drive by popular restaurants around 6 and the line will be out the door. If you're feeling particularly elitist and snobbish, you can have a "late" dinner at 7. But go into any restaurant around 8 and it will be a ghost town. And the kitchen will be closing.
The restaurants here skew heavily towards the large corporate chains. Ask someone to recommend a good Italian restaurant and you'll get "Olive Garden". Steaks? "Outback Steakhouse". They congregate on the periphery of the gargantuan parking lots that serve the endless WalMarts, Targets and Home Depots. There are a few I've never heard of before, but I'm assuming they're in the "test" phase and will be coming soon to a strip mall near you.
We've tried to go rogue, go off the grid, and try a handful of mom and pop Chinese and Thai restaurants, always frustrated and disappointed. It isn't so much the questionable meat, although there's that - you do find yourself calculating just how quickly you could get to the hospital if need be. No, the biggest problem is that in every single case, they've leeched every bit of flavor out of the food. They've no doubt found they have to do that to appease the local palate. Use a spice, go out of business. But when the most savory part of the meal is the white rice, whats the point?
But not everything in Bako is bleak. Never thought I'd write that sentence on this blog. When it comes to food, there actually are a couple of bright spots.
The first is Basque food. The Basque community in this area goes back generations, working the land. Some of the oldest restaurants in town are Basque. I've only eaten at one, Wool Growers, and it was excellent. It won't win any points for decor and ambiance, but it more than makes up for it with the food.
And the second is, inexplicably, Indian. There is a HUGE Sikh population here. They just opened a good sized temple on the outskirts of town. Why they settled in one of the most xenophobic counties in the country is beyond me. A couple of times on the local news they've covered major Sikh events and they always add the disclaimer "Even though members of the Sikh community wear turbans, they are NOT Arab or Muslim...." That's reassuring. Wouldn't want any unpleasantness. At any rate, the Indian food here is generally pretty good.
And the best thing about both is, because it's the food of foreigners and terrorists, you never have to wait for a table.
